It’s a late night in August. Over the day, the house warms like the world’s laziest oven, a slow cooker. Our HVAC is slowly but surely giving up the ghost. At night, we cling together in the bedroom, however many BTUs shooting out of the window unit like pillars of ice melting instantly when they hit our skin. Sublimation, subjugation.
Two bottles of red wine. Half a season of Babylon 5 (Season 4, where shit has gotten heavier and darker still). That awkward moment when I realize I’ve taught him to speak French like he’s three sheets to the wind with his fly open. Covering his mouth in kisses, his neck, his chest.
We do our favorite dances, an arbitrary mix of whatever suits us. A desperation is blooming in me, wrapped, unwrapped, rewrapped in the sheets.
I sink like a stone into sleep.
In the morning, it comes to me. I really need to let myself off the hook for the times I haven’t been there.
But how to forgive oneself? I suppose this is the part where I repeat it to myself enough times that I believe it.
Like everything else, we brainwash ourselves clean of a life that gets us all dirty.